Tortured by weariness and pain
by Sashet
Summary: The Doctor is captured and tortured in an attempt to make him give up his TARDIS. A PWP with major Doctor whump ensues so be warned!


A/N: This is VERY much a PWP written in response to a request to address the lack of serious Doctor Whump, so be aware that there is a fair amount of nastiness done to our favourite Time Lord.

Some of you will like it and some of you won't but the person who asked me to write it is happy and as a writer that makes me happy too.

Dr. D gets the usual thanks and cookies for doing the beta reading.

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Tortured by weariness and pain…..

_Tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach__…._

_From; The Free Man's Worship by Bertrand Russell_

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Many things about this are NOT good, the Doctor decided as he rounded the corner of the building and found a gang of this planet's equivalent of happy slappy hoodies with ASBOS and ring tones throwing bricks at his TARDIS. It wasn't that he was worried for the TARDIS, after all what were a few bricks compared to the assembled hordes of Genghis Kahn… and they hadn't got through the doors either. No, what worried the Doctor was what the hoodies would do to him because he was sure it wasn't going to be good.

"Er hello…I'm the Doctor and that's my…," he paused, did he really want to tell them what it was? "Box."

"Your "box?" the thug used air quotes for the word box which riled the Doctor slightly but he didn't let it show.

"Yep," he popped the p and threw them what he hoped was a disarming grin. "That's my BOX."

"Do you think we are stupid?" another of them asked turning to the Doctor, his piece of brick still held menacingly in his hand. "We know EXACTLY what this is and who you are."

"Right," the Doctor cast a glance around for a way out and found that the way he had arrived was now blocked by more of the gang and he was pretty much trapped! Time for some quick thinking and good old Doctor wit and charm he decided. "Well you would know who I am 'cos I told you, when I got here, remember I said 'I'm the Doctor' so no surprises there then…"

He would have said more but he never got the chance. He heard the whine of an energy weapon a split second before its beam enveloped him in a blaze of agony and he crumpled unconscious to the floor.

The Doctor woke to find himself in the most clichéd dungeon he could imagine (and he'd seen plenty in his 900 years). He was hanging from chains set high in a wall lit by candles and accompanied by an endless dripping of water. He was, of course, half naked too. Only the tiny red light almost hidden in the top corner behind a large cobweb told the Doctor that all wasn't as it seemed. As he knew he was being observed he decided not to waste his energy shouting for help that wouldn't come and just wait…rightly he thought he might need his energy and his voice for later.

He didn't have to wait long.

A tall well built man, immaculately dressed but with a face that was devoid of all expression, let himself in through the creaking door.

"Hello Doctor," his voice was as cold as the dungeon. "I'll dispense with all the usual pleasantries and explanations and just cut to the quick. What do you say?"

"Fine by me, by the way I love what you've done with the place Mr…..?"

"No Doctor...not this time…this time I get what I want."

"And that would be?"

"Your TARDIS of course! The last TARDIS in existence and soon it and all its power will be mine."

"Don't think so."

"I'm glad you're taking that line Doctor, I really hate it when people just give me what I want straight away."

"Even if you kill me you won't get the TARDIS."

"Shall we see… how many lives do you have left Doctor …3…is it worth dying for?"

The Doctor didn't dignify him with an answer. "I think I'll start with something fitting for our surroundings."

He raised a hand and snapped his fingers, there was the flash of a transporter beam and a roaring brazier appeared beside the man. Ominously for the Doctor it held several already red hot irons. Pulling on a heavy leather glove the man removed one of the irons from the fire.

"Don't disappoint me Doctor," the ghost of what could have been a smile crossed his features. "Where is the key to your TARDIS?"

"Don't know, must have it somewhere, maybe if you let me down…but then again that's not such a good idea we can't have a psychopath like you anywhere near my TARDIS."

Without another word the Doctor had the breath stolen from him as his captor swung the iron at him, cleanly breaking a rib as it seared away the flesh from his side. He turned the iron again and again, rolling it over the Doctor's skin until it blistered and the room was filled with a sickening smell. As the iron cooled it was discarded and replaced by another, this one pressed against the soft skin of the Doctor's exposed arm until that too was charred and scorched, the skin red and angry.

The Doctor tipped his head back, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his skin as he felt the searing agony of another iron against his body. This one scalded the soles of both his feet and he barely kept the scream inside, allowing himself only a groan as he fought against the pain. He jerked in his chains in a futile attempt to pull himself away from the heat that seemed to be spreading all through him. Long after each iron was removed he could feel the heat in his blistered skin.

A fist in his hair and the cool breath of his torturer on his face made him open his eyes.

"Come on Doctor….the key."

"Never."

"I wish I could say I'm sorry," he whispered as he took the last iron and pressed it firmly against the Doctors groin. The iron made short work of the Doctor's suit the ragged edges of the material sticking to the burnt flesh beneath. This time the scream forcing itself past the Doctor's lips was only stopped when the pain in his groin became too much for even a Time Lord to bear and he passed out.

When the Doctor woke up it was to a level of pain that he hadn't expected. A dull throbbing ache that pulsed in time to his every breath emanated from his broken rib and sharp points of pain radiated from everywhere he had been burnt. He shouldn't have felt like this, even when unconscious his body's advanced healing properties should have started to work repairing his damaged skin and broken bones…but as he hung in his chains waves of pain lapping at the corners of his mind the Doctor knew for certain that hadn't happened, he just didn't know why.

There had to be a reason he told himself as he wriggled ineffectually against his restraints trying to twist and turn enough to see every corner of his dank prison.

When his movements caught the edge of a blistering burn against the cold stone wall, breaking the delicate skin and rubbing dirt into the now open wound the Doctor swore more loudly than he would have liked to.

Glancing down at the raw seeping wound trickling blood down his side the Doctor mentally chided himself for such a lapse, he may have been alone in the room but he was sure that he was being watched, and there wasn't any need to let his captors know that what they had done to him HURT. He blinked the sweat from his eyes and settled his breathing trying to force his body to start the healing process. Again nothing happened.

"Why?" he mumbled almost to himself.

The door creaked open again and the silhouette of his torturer filled the frame.

"Why Doctor, because I choose not to let you heal…I assume that is what you were wondering?"

"How can you do that, I'm a Time Lord, I'm…"

"Different, unique, the last of your kind?" he waved a hand dismissively. "I've taken all those things and turned them against you, the parts of your brain that stimulate healing are being suppressed by a chemical of my own making which is being continuously pumped into the atmosphere. When you give me the key to your TARDIS I'll turn it off and if you are lucky you might just survive with one regeneration left."

The revelation that this man was responsible shook the Doctor; Time Lords had a unique physiology that few, if any, outside of their own kind, knew much if anything about. Was he another Time Lord? He didn't feel that….

"Oh and before you even think about using your respiratory bypass system to avoid breathing it in, if I even suspect you are doing that I will take one of your lives, you can be certain of that."

"How do I know you won't do that anyway?"

"You don't," there was no joy, no gloating, not even any amusement in the mans voice just a cold hard edge that left the Doctor in no doubt that he would carry out his threat. "But let's see how you get on with what I have next first."

His captor drew a wicked looking blade from within his jacket and in one quick stride crossed the room and drove the razor sharp blade into the palm of the Doctor's left hand.

The Doctor's eyes widened, initially with a fascinated horror at what had just happened to him and then, as his blood gushed from the wound, with the shock of the explosion of pain that filled his hand. He imagined he could feel the tendons and nerves being severed as the knife was twisted in his palm until with a final grunt of effort his captor succeeded in driving the blade right through his hand.

As the blade broke the skin on the back of the Doctor's hand the sound that spilled from his lips was part curse and part scream. He grimaced and sucked in short quick breaths as if that would somehow help to dull the agony.

"Key?" the man asked, pulling out another knife and stroking it gently down the Doctor's sweat stained face.

"No," the word was spat from between clenched teeth but was still filled with determination.

The knife was turned and used to score a line across the Doctor's face from just below his eye almost to his jaw line. It wasn't deep but that didn't mean that it hurt or bled any less. With just a slight inclination of his head the man silently asked the same question. A single shake of the Doctor's head as well as sprinkling his captor with blood gave him his answer.

Taking a half step back the man began idly picking at the worst of the burnt and blistered skin on the Doctor's chest with the point of the knife. He burst several blisters and teased at the raw skin beneath until every touch of the blade set the Doctor trembling where he hung.

The Doctor was pale and shaking now, blood coursed down his arm from his hand. His face and several other places on his body that now also sported cuts and gashes bled to a lesser degree. And all of them hurt…all of them engulfed the Doctor in waves of pain that took his breath away. Sweat stung in his eyes as another crescendo of agony vied for his attention and he couldn't help the gasping groan that spilled from his dry raw throat as an unexpected and vicious punch landed on his broken rib.

"No doubt you've thought about escaping from me Doctor. I know if I were you I would have done." The words were accompanied by the Doctor being pulled in a twisting motion from the wall by a firm grip on the palm of his left hand, squeezing the flesh just below where the knife protruded until he had turned sufficiently for the back of his left leg to be exposed. "And I can't have you doing that."

This time the Doctor did scream as the knife was buried virtually to the hilt in his hamstring, almost certainly tearing the muscle and seriously hindering any chances he might have had of escape. To make certain of the damage he was inflicting the man pulled the knife free and repeated the action holding the Doctor's writhing body still with his other hand as he did so.

The Doctor wasn't sure why he was still conscious as he felt the blade being withdrawn for a second time accompanied by a warm rush of blood that soon soaked his suit trousers. As the blade broke free of his flesh his body spasmed and, as he gasped in lungfulls of air to try and help manage the pain, he was suddenly aware of the irony of his situation… the more he sucked in air the more he sucked in whatever was in the air that stopped him healing. Doing what he could to manage the pain was in fact helping to prolong it!

He felt faint and nauseous as he hung limply in his chains, blood from his leg now starting to stain the floor beneath him. His mind was clouded with unwanted sensations including the beginnings of a fear that if whatever stopped him healing also stopped him regenerating then he might truly die here.

He couldn't think clearly as the dark tendrils of unconsciousness beckoned him but this time didn't come. His torturer obviously knew just how much pain to inflict to keep his victims conscious, even when those victims were Time Lords.

"Why?" the Doctor asked his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. He could taste bile in his mouth and blood from his cut face on his lips. When he raised his eyes to look at his captor their normal vibrancy was gone, replaced by a dullness that only extreme pain can create.

The man didn't answer immediately studying the burnt, bleeding body that hung before him. It was obvious to him that the Doctor was hurt but not yet broken and he knew that to get the key to the TARDIS he would have to break him.

He tipped his head to one side and this time the Doctor was sure that he did smile as the hand that still held the bloodied knife smashed into his face splitting his lip and making his nose bleed.

"Because I can Doctor, I can and I will."

A short sharp blow to the Doctor's unprotected stomach had him heaving and choking on his own blood as he struggled for air. He coughed and retched spitting blood towards the floor, leaving a red trail down his face.

The man took the knife and carefully wiped it clean of the Doctor's blood before he put it back in his jacket. His hands now free he used them both to good effect on the Doctor's helpless form, raining blows onto his torso and aiming the occasional well placed elbow against his face.

The Doctor tried to hold in the need to beg this man to stop as pain piled on pain and his body started to implode with the abuse. He could do nothing to stop the blows, nothing to protect his vulnerable areas from the seemingly endless violence.

An elbow to his face spun the Doctor's head so violently that it smashed against the wall behind him and the sound of breaking bones was barely audible over the Doctor's own cries.

"Give me the key and I can make it stop," the man announced.

The flare of anger in the Doctor's eyes gave him the answer that the words he couldn't summon didn't. He hadn't ever felt prolonged pain like this before, but despite that he knew that he couldn't, he just couldn't give this crazed individual the key.

"Very well. But know this Doctor you WILL give me what I want," he told him before he cruelly grabbed the knife embedded in the Doctor's hand and twisted it. The Doctor didn't even have time to think how much that action hurt before he fell into the blessed pain free embrace of the blackness.

A sharp pungent odour snapped the Doctor back to consciousness and the realisation that, in the short time he had been unconscious, his situation had not improved. His body was now stiff and bruised from the beating and when he tried to focus he found that one eye was so swollen he could hardly see out of it. He was chilled and soon his body started to tremble as shock and blood loss started to take their toll. Whenever he moved it seemed that he broke the skin of a newly formed scab and began to bleed again.

"The beginning of the end I think Doctor, even a Time Lord isn't invincible so why don't you just give me the key and I'll let you regenerate?"

"Go to hell," the Doctor slurred past his dry and swollen lips.

"After you," the man said as he pointed what looked very much like a sonic device at the chains holding the Doctor. They snapped open, his wrists were now raw and bleeding where they had rubbed against the harsh metal of the cuffs that held him, and the Doctor fell the few feet to the floor landing on the blistered soles of his feet. Instinctively the Doctor tried to take a step to steady himself but the combination of the pain that shot from his feet and his weakened state meant that all he managed was to tumble to his hands and knees, jarring broken bones and forcing a strangled moan from him.

He raised his head; his sweat dampened hair sticking to him and looked at the man who stood impassively in front of him. He didn't have the strength to ask the questions that filled his pain addled mind and so, as a fit of coughing caused him to spit more blood onto the floor, he let his head drop….almost submitting to his fate.

Almost.

"On your knees Doctor."

Digging deep into what made him known throughout the universe as The Oncoming Storm, the Doctor found a glimmer of strength inside his battered frame and latching onto that he gritted his teeth and with only the smallest exhalation and groan of pain pushed himself off his hands and into a kneeling position.

The torn muscle in the back of his leg screamed in protest as the Doctor knelt unsteadily on the cold uneven floor. He held his hand to the area that hurt the most and it came away sticky with fresh blood. He wondered how much blood he had lost, it felt like a lot and yet he was still alive, still so much aware of everything, of every pain-filled breath that he feared he had more to loose before it would finally end.

"Should I ask you again Doctor or am I just wasting my breath?" the man asked almost conversationally.

"Why bother…you know what my answer will be…," the Doctor's speech was laboured, forced past gritted teeth and punctuated with occasional bouts of coughing up blood. When his captor pulled a handgun from his waistband and cocked it he stayed defiantly silent, swaying slightly as he fought to stay upright.

The shot was deafeningly loud in the confines of the dungeon and hit the Doctor squarely in the upper right hand side of his chest making a mockery of his attempts to kneel by sending him sprawling to the floor. The impact of him hitting the floor combined with his shocked cry took what little air he had from his lungs and rattled his head against the floor.

The knife through his left hand meant that was useless to try and stem the bleeding and the Doctor had no choice but to lie there feeling his life's essence spilling from him. Recovering his breath he mumbled a litany of curses as he rolled from side to side on his back as if that would somehow make the pain go away.

The deathly pallor of his skin only served to highlight the darkening bruises and angry red burns. Blood and sweat mingled freely all over his body which was now so close to completely shutting down that he didn't even have the energy to shake any more.

The Doctor was so engulfed by the agonies of what felt like every inch of his body that he had failed to notice that his subjugator was now stood astride him the gun held unwaveringly steady and aimed right at his head.

"Is it true that when you regenerate you keep your memories?" he asked. "I hope so because I want your next self to remember how much this hurt and how simple it would have been to make it stop."

The Doctor was at the lowest ebb of his life since he had walked away bloodied and injured from the last battle of the Time War. The thought that another regeneration would have to suffer the same or maybe worse agonies than he had endured made him long for death…irrevocable, irreversible death. That way he would be free and his TARDIS would be safe…the man would never gain entry to her even if he had all of eternity to try.

"Last chance Doctor…or when you wake up next time I'll have a whole new Doctor to torture."

The Doctor was ready to beg for his death but before he got a chance an alarm sounded outside his dungeon and his captor spun angrily on his heel and strode to the still open doorway. A whispered conversation that the Doctor couldn't hear over the pounding of his hearts and with a backward glance from his nemesis he was once more alone.

Stunned by the unexpected turn of events the Doctor could initially do nothing but lie where he had fallen, his hearts racing, filled with a dread that at any minute his torturer would return to finish the job. The faint sounds of footsteps and voices in the far distance spurred him to action, somehow he had to force his battered, bleeding and broken body to one more act…he had to escape...he had to get out of this room and he had to do it now. Although he didn't know what he might find beyond the abandoned doorway he had no choice…if he stayed where he was he WOULD die.

Forcing himself to slow his breathing he waited for his respiratory bypass system to kick in and help him, but the damage to his body was already so great that even that simple act was beyond him and there would be no easy respite from the pain he was now in. It would take determination, grit, courage and language not normally associated with the Time Lords if he was going to save himself.

He raised his left hand, the sight of the knife protruding through it made him feel sick, but not as sick as the agony that flared with his first attempt to pull the knife free. His right hand was slicked with his blood before he tried to hold the knife and he couldn't keep a firm grip on the handle. As he pulled, the knife tore more skin and flesh before he lost his grip.

Cursing under his breath, chiding and encouraging himself the Doctor tried again, he wiped his hand on his trousers grabbed the knife handle and with a strength that he didn't know he could have had he pulled the blade free. Blood once more flowed freely from the wound and as his strength faded as suddenly as it had come he dropped the knife, his right hand falling back to his side jarring the gunshot wound in his chest to such an extent that he briefly lost consciousness.

The Doctor cranked open his one good eye….he had only been out cold for a minute or so and was thankfully still alone. He had to get moving… he knew that getting to his feet in his current state was impossible but if he could get to his hands and knees he could crawl or drag himself from the dungeon. But first he had to get onto his front… with broken bones, one useless hand and a gaping hole in his chest it was going to be a painful experience. He chose to roll away from the gunshot wound and try and take his weight on his damaged hand instead. On the third attempt he managed it, screaming with the pain until he collapsed on his front vomiting blood from the exertion.

There was no time for self pity – he could feel his body failing with every passing minute. He pushed himself to his knees and elbows and began to drag himself along the stone floor. His left side was virtually useless, his damaged hand couldn't take any weight and his sliced hamstring meant that his leg was nothing more than an inconvenient dead weight behind him. Every time he pushed with his right foot and leg, he tore the fragile burnt skin on the sole of his foot, and released a pain that until now had been insignificant amongst his other suffering. The movements tore at the hole in his chest, ripping at the skin and muscles, tearing at his consciousness with an unexpected viciousness. He couldn't let himself pass out…he couldn't… he wouldn't.

Tears filled his eyes, sweat dripped from him as he dragged himself across the floor a trail of his blood his legacy to the dungeon. Time became contracted to the point where only the next second mattered…because in every second he moved a little further away from his hell.

Slowly, painfully but definitively he made his escape. Stopping often to catch his breath or to allow a particularly angry wave of pain to pass he dragged himself inch by agonising inch into the corridor beyond the dungeon.

It couldn't have been more of a contrast… stark clean lines and the low hum of an atomic energy drive engine told the Doctor that he was on a spaceship! A spaceship…how the HELL was he going to get off a spaceship?

The discovery floored him… had all that effort been for nothing? Defeated the Doctor allowed himself to collapse to the floor for once unmindful of the pain and uncaring of the fact that now he cried freely. Then deep within his psyche somewhere behind the myriad levels of pain he felt her…his TARDIS…she was here…and all he had to do was find her.

His resolve renewed he blinked away his tears, hauled himself back to his hands and knees and carried on. Her touch in his mind told him which way to go, gave him strength and hope and soon he had found her.

He didn't have a key but as he lay on the floor he snapped the fingers of his right hand and the door swung open. With quite literally the VERY last of his strength he pulled himself over the threshold, collapsed onto the grating and as the door swung shut behind him his last words were;

"Help me."


End file.
